Neil T. Anderson

“Have you read Neil T. Anderson?” “You’ve got to read Neil T. Anderson!” “I can’t believe you haven’t read Neil T. Anderson!”

We heard it over and over before we left the U.S. Apparently, Neil T. Anderson’s description and explanation of encounters with hostile spiritual forces was unparalleled and essential for life in a “non-Christian” country.

Well.

Victory Over The Darkness, the first of the pair, is sort of a theology of the demonic for people who don’t like words like “theology” and “demonic”. His arguments are incoherent. His scriptural exegesis is sloppy. And he builds it all on a dualistic worldview that is incompatible with the scriptural assertion that God is sovereign even over evil.

The Bondage Breaker was better, in part because quick skimming (see Alder and Van Doren) allowed me to see that the first few chapters were repetitions of Victory Over The Darkness. The last several chapters, though, are helpful guides to prayer, and I would recommend them highly, especially for anyone who can’t find more concise and biblical guidelines for healing prayer.

Hans Christian Anderson

Fairy tales have happy endings, they say. “They,” being people who haven’t read Hans Christian Anderson.

Ballerina princesses turn out to be nothing but tinsel.

Mermaids die, and don’t go to heaven.

They’re so sad.

But so beautiful.

The Grimm Brothers’ stories have a brutality that some children love, but Anderson’s sadness seems to serve for the same catharsis. Some current authors (Roald Dahl and Lemony Snickett, for instance) recreate some of the Grimms’ morbid comedy, but I don’t know of any modern authors that have Anderson’s gift for drawing out the sadness.

Neil T. Anderson

“Have you read Neil T. Anderson?” “You’ve got to read Neil T. Anderson!” “I can’t believe you haven’t read Neil T. Anderson!”

We heard it over and over before we left the U.S. Apparently, Neil T. Anderson’s description and explanation of encounters with hostile spiritual forces was unparalleled and essential for life in a “non-Christian” country.

Well.

Victory Over The Darkness, the first of the pair, is sort of a theology of the demonic for people who don’t like words like “theology” and “demonic”. His arguments are incoherent. His scriptural exegesis is sloppy. And he builds it all on a dualistic worldview that is incompatible with the scriptural assertion that God is sovereign even over evil.

The Bondage Breaker was better, in part because quick skimming (see Alder and Van Doren) allowed me to see that the first few chapters were repetitions of Victory Over The Darkness. The last several chapters, though, are helpful guides to prayer, and I would recommend them highly, especially for anyone who can’t find more concise and biblical guidelines for healing prayer.